The Cell
by with-the-klutch
Summary: Elena's inner conflict after finding Enzo alive. She is processing Damon's shocking confession, and faces the inner turmoil regarding it.


Elena's thoughts raced, though the restraints around her wrists and waist restricted her body from doing so as well. She struggled to gather her thoughts, trying to piece together how she got here. To this place. To this life. A few years earlier, had it been her father who had been in charge here? Did her tear the eyes from his victims? Did he enjoy the suffering of the vampires, or did he sympathise? Did Grayson Gilbert seek to heal the immortal ailment; or did he wish to end it entirely? Elena felt a thickness n her throat as she forced herself to ask the most basic question of all.

_Would he have tortured his own vampire daughter?_

A sudden low whistle from her left startled Elena. Twisting, she realized she was not the only prisoner her. Beside her, restrained in the same way as she, lay a handsome, dark, muscular man, oddly chipper for a place like this. For a moment, she was afraid that it was not merely the vampires that this college was experimenting on; this was the optimism of a human. But just as this thought entered her mind, the stranger made a soft sound, an interested observing noise.

"Welcome…" he said dreamily. "I'm 12144. My name's Enzo." Elena's heart skipped a beat. She couldn't possibly be looking into the face of Enzo. The vervain that coursed through her veins, as well as the shock of the face before her struck her unable to speak. He couldn't be Enzo. Damon had left him for dead he had told her only hours ago.

_Damon. _Elena's racing mind had found yet another topic of dismay. Turning away from Enzo, she remembered with ferocious severity of his repulsing confession. That he, after leaving the Whitmore house, supposedly leaving Enzo burning inside it, had begun his long awaited revenge. He had killed in cold blood ever member of the Whitmore family. Every member, except one. He had let one grow, start a family, a sense of security, and when the time was right, Damon would come again. He would repeat this for an immeasurable amount of generations to come. Over and over. God knows how many times. Elena felt her stomach churn, and had she still been human, she knew she would have been sick then and there. Her Damon. Could she call him her Damon any longer? She felt the severity of Aaron's guilt as if it had been her own, her heightened compassion and empathy making his actions almost too great for her to bear. She felt Aaron's heartbreak, his hatred for his survival. She felt it all too well; in the two years since the Salvatore's walked into her life she had watched her world crumble, her family destroyed. How could he have doomed another to the same fate?

She could practically hear Caroline telling her that she had warned her; no matter how dangerous Elena's world was, it was no more dangerous than the man she had let into her bed. But Elena hadn't had a choice, not really. Her love for Damon had developed without her conscience even realizing it. As she had told Matt, almost a year ago now, Damon had gotten under her skin, and she couldn't shake him. She had known who he was. He was the man who loved the same woman for 145 years. He was also the man that offered that same woman to Silas without blinking. He was the man who took an arrow in the back for her; after he snapped her brother's neck. He was the man that got through to her buried humanity; after he tortured her to get it. Of course he could be the killer. She should have known better.

Elena realized that she could now identify the feeling she felt deep in her core, the burning, blood churning sensation that she could not recognize before; it was hatred. She hated Damon. She hated him for who he was and how he made her feel. She hated his smirk, and his remarks. She hated his collateral damage. She hated what he had done. She realized too that there had always been a part of her that hated him, that would always hate him. But her hate was a lamb compared to her love; a starving wolf. She would never forgive him for her actions.

But the wolf would be fed; Elena Gilbert would always love her Salvatore.


End file.
